Saint Jellyfish

Saint Jellyfish

My favorite costume at the Aquarium’s Halloween party was this fantastic bioluminescent jellyfish.  What fun to take on the persona (literally, mask) of a jelly for one night, drifting and dancing and shimmering in the deep dark sea, or, in this case, the Deep Reef Exhibit.

She looked so heavenly, I decided to call her Saint Jellyfish.

I was already thinking about the day after Halloween, All Saints Day, that is today, when we traditionally honor beloved and special folks who have died. But I prefer the way the early church referred to everyone, living and dead, as a saint.  “The communion of saints,” “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” “equipping the saints for the work of ministry.”  Since God created us all, we are All Saints.  

Here at our Blue Theology Mission Station, as we encourage faithful ocean spirituality and stewardship, we celebrate wet saints as well as dry, all the holy ones whom God creates and loves. 

And since my Blue Theology faith dives deep and wide, I believe every living being is saintly, holy, every creature is a blessing, full of God’s light.  Even jellyfish.

This shining jelly had fun on Halloween.  On this All Saints Day she represents, for me at least, a shining saint in God’s deep creation, a swimming, dancing, luminescent holy being.

Medieval mystic Julian of Norwich experienced deeply this cosmic unity of all creation, calling it God’s “oneing.”  In her vision she saw (modernized language): “The soul is preciously knitted to God in its making, by a knot so subtle and so mighty that it is oned into God.  In this oneing, it is made endlessly holy.  Furthermore, God wants us to know that all souls are knit into the same knot and oned in this oneing, and made holy in this one identical holiness.”  

Happy holy one wet blue All Saints Day.

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We’ve booked two Blue Theology youth service trips already for 2018, spring break and summer.  Check out bluetheology.com for program and availability.  We also welcome intergenerational groups and clergy renewal times along Monterey Bay.  I write these “Tide-ings” every Wednesday.